It had been almost finished, he thought. After his suggestion to arrest the Gonds, and all those expert articles in newspapers, he thought it was finished. Another month or so, and the government would be free to throw the Gonds out, and everyone would cheer. Ghosh even got several phone calls, including from the big people in the Company, congratulating him for sorting out everything in Balangir.

Then the petition had happened. It was extremely strange, in Ghosh’s experience. Wherever he went, people tended to lie down after they had been kicked. They didn’t usually fight back, and not in court. And they certainly did not come up with ideas like voting on mines or factories.

Now the Supreme Court had accepted the Gonds’ petition, and agreed to have a hearing, where both sides—Jadob and his friends on one side and the government’s clever lawyers on the other—could present their arguments. But no matter how interested the Supreme Court was, it was busy, so the hearing could only be held in December.

‘The petition, you mean? Oh, they just went to Delhi and …’

‘No!’ said Ghosh. ‘I mean, how did they think of it? Who thinks of something like this? People don’t vote for mines. Next thing you know, people in cities will be demanding to vote if someone wants to build a flyover, or a speedbreaker, or a dustbin. Only somebody who doesn’t understand how voting works, or democracy works, would ask for something like this. Only someone illiterate and … and simple-minded. Or somebody who wants us to think they are simple. I am sure the idea came from those busybodies in Bhubaneshwar who have been supporting the Gonds.’

Ghosh knew a lot about democracy. In some ways, he really liked it. In some ways, he didn’t. He always thought fondly of the old times, when the world had kings and queens. Things were much simpler then. The big man or woman gave an order, everyone jumped around getting it done. Simple and quick. Someone like Ghosh could get a king to make a country do whatever he wanted.

Democracy, now that was different. But Ghosh liked it too, because of the way it had turned out. He had been to most countries in the world, and to some places which wanted to be countries of their own. Only a few countries were really democracies, he had found. Most other people just didn’t know how it was supposed to work. They thought they knew, but had absolutely no idea.